As world power continues to re-calibrate as former powers decline and new powers rise, the shift is manifesting itself in military spending. Within the military there is a constant tension between sea/air and land forces, as these forces play different roles. To address shifts in global power, it is best to be able to respond flexibly, and navies offer the best way to shift power quickly. And navies all over the world are becoming much stronger and more robust. The relative inability of land-based armies to produce decisive results (in Iraq and Afghanistan) has diminished the appeal of that arm of military power.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Obama and urged him to proceed cautiously with respect to Iran. From the Israeli perspective, Iran represents a central threat and a temporary change in government does not alter the strategic threat it poses to Israeli security. It will be difficult for President Obama to thread this needle: engaging Iran productively without alienating Israel. Obama would be well-advised to enlist the aid of allies to test the sincerity of Iranian intentions–that strategy will keep channels to both sides open.
The Guardian continues to publish information about the US National Security Agency from materials leaked by Edward Snowden. Its most recent article details how the NSA stores “metadata” in a program codenamed “Marina.” Contrary to what the US government has asserted, the NSA stores information from everyone, even those people who are not targeted by the NSA. It keeps that information for a year, even though it asserts that that material is not reviewed. How does it feel to know that the NSA can know everything you do (if it chooses) on the internet?
Peter Turchin, a mathematician at the University of Connecticut, has developed a mathematical model of the spread of empires. Intriguingly, he found that conflict among societies and the development of military technology were among the two most important variables explaining the spread of empires. I will confess that I have little expertise to evaluate the integrity of the model, but the simulation, when compared to the actual data, is quite impressive. I will leave it to others to determine whether the model is something we should use as a guide.
Pakistan suffered its third major bomb attack in a week, as a bomb blew up an historic market in Peshawar. The political situation in Pakistan seems to be rapidly deteriorating, even more so because of a series of earthquakes that have killed many and injured hundreds. The legitimacy of the Pakistani government and its effectiveness are being increasingly questioned.
The US may, along with Greece and Italy, be facing a major economic crisis as the Congress appears unable to agree upon a budget. While the economic situation in the US is not as precarious as in the other two states, its inability to accomplish routine tasks is raising questions about whether democracies are in fact governable in the 21st century. It is an interesting historical moment.
Greek police arrested Nikos Michaloliakos, the leader of the ultra-right party Golden Dawn as well as several members of the Greek legislature. The police charged them with terrorism charges after the murder of leftist hip-hop artist, Pavlos Fyssas. It is highly unusual to arrest sitting members of Parliament, and it remains to be seen whether the arrests will trigger a crisis in the Greek government. Given the dire economic conditions in Greece, a political crisis would likely create a panic among Greek creditors. The Italian government will also dissolve soon after the defection of five legislators associated with Silvio Berlusconi.
Iranian President Rouhani returned to Iran after a very dramatic visit to the United Nations. His return was marked by both supporters and opponents of his conciliatory remarks to the US. The US reciprocated by hosting a meeting between Secretary of State Kerry and the Iranian Foreign Minister as well as a telephone call to Rouhani from President Obama. This was the first direct contact between the two countries since 1979, and it genuinely seems as if both sides are interested in a thaw in relations.
It’s Saturday night. Relax. Here’s a great song. Written by Jackson Browne and played by The Eagles. Remember: “We may lose, and we may win. But we’ll never be here again.”
Well, I’m running down the road
tryin’ to loosen my load
I’ve got seven women on
my mind,
Four that wanna own me,
Two that wanna stone me,
One says she’s a friend of mine
Take It easy, take it easy
Don’t let the sound of your own wheels
drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
don’t even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand
and take it easy
Well, I’m a standing on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona
and such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed
Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me
Come on, baby, don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love is
gonna save me
We may lose and we may win though
we will never be here again
so open up, I’m climbin’ in,
so take it easy
Well I’m running down the road trying to loosen
my load, got a world of trouble on my mind
lookin’ for a lover who won’t blow my
cover, she’s so hard to find
Take it easy, take it easy
don’t let the sound of your own
wheels make you crazy
come on baby, don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love is
gonna save me, oh oh oh
Oh we got it easy
We oughta take it easy
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its most recent report which attributes, “with virtual certainty”, the rise in global temperatures over the last century to human activity. Needless to say, there are some who contest this conclusion, but The Guardian gives a close analysis to the reasons to believe that it is a valid one.
Often the violence after a war is just as bad as the violence during the war. Ian Buruma is one of the world’s pre-eminent historians and he has written a book entitled Year Zero: A History of 1945. In this review of the book, Brooke Allen outlines the savage actions by the victors in World War II against the losers, notably the use of rape as a way to impose humiliation on those who chose, or who were forced to choose, the losing side of the conflict.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is one of the members of the group, Pussy Riot, who was imprisoned in Russia for crimes that basically consist of “disturbing the public order.” Her imprisonment is considered by many outside of Russia to be excessive and a clear violation of human rights. She has written a letter describing her confinement to the world which deserves a close read.
There are encouraging signs that the US-Russia agreement on the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons is actually being taken seriously by both the Russians and Syrians. Many observers, including me, we quite skeptical of the sincerity of those two states, but the Russians seem to have taken on the responsibility to make sure that the agreement succeeds. The initial reports from the US on the list provided by the Syrians of their chemical weapons sites suggest that the list correlates well with US intelligence. And it also seems that there are few actual “weapons.” Most of what has been revealed is that the Syrians have the components for chemical weapons, but have not actually assembled them into usable form.
Stanislav Petrov is not a name that many people know. But Mr. Petrov saved the world in 1983 by ignoring a machine that told him that the US had launched a nuclear attack on the USSR. Mr. Petrov’s job was to alert his superiors in case of a nuclear attack. Fortunately for all of us, Mr. Petrov decided to trust his own gut rather than obey the machine authority, and did not report the purported “attack.” Apparently, he decided to confound Stanley Milgram.
We may (or may not) be facing the re-emergence of a political and economic crisis in Italy. The current government is a strange coalition of center-left and center-right parties, and the center-right party is threatening to pull out if former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is forced to leave his seat in the upper house of the Parliament. The removal was the penalty imposed on Berlusconi after his conviction of fraud. If the center-right party pulls out, it is likely that the Italian government will collapse. If that occurs, investors in Italian debt will get scared, and Italian borrowing costs will skyrocket. The fear that the Italian government may not be able to pay off its debts may precipitate a general economic panic among investors in Europe, which will most certainly slow down economic growth throughout the continent.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN Committee charged with monitoring the state of the world’s climate, will be meeting soon to make final changes to its latest five-year report. Last time, the IPCC stated that it was 95% certain that human activity was leading to climate changes that could have dire consequences for the environment. This time, the report is wrestling with a 15-year pause in the rate of temperature increase that climate change skeptics have argued undermines that central conclusion. Leaked reports suggest that the IPCC will not change that conclusion, but will acknowledge that the pause makes predictions much more difficult.
Many of the world’s garments come from textile mills in Bangladesh, where working conditions are generally very bad. The workers in these factories are currently engaged in a strike to demand higher wages and better working conditions. The strike is causing problems for many US and European retailers who rely on the cheaper products from low wage countries but who are also concerned about being identified with factories that exploit workers to such an incredible degree. Pressure on these retailers are slowly changing the working conditions for the better, but there is still much that needs to be done.
Income inequality is a major issue in world affairs, largely because the rate at which inequality is growing is extraordinary and largely stimulated by the process of globalization. The Washington Post has a graphic of how income inequality in the US has grown since 1977. The graphic is amazing–the more green one sees in the map, the greater the degree of income inequality. It is also an index of either a serious economic problem (the collapse of demand in a consumer-driven economy) or a political problem (a deepening sense that the system is rigged in favor of the rich).
Many people argue about when the process of globalization began (I think it began when the first group of homo sapiens started walking and bumped into another group of homo sapiens). The Economist has a very interesting essay on the question, and adds some provocative insights.
Angela Merkel’s election victory needs to be sealed by building a coalition with other political parties. The most likely coalition would be a center-right Party (Merkel’s Christian Democrats) and a center-left Party (Known by its German initials, SPD). Apparently, however, it seems as if few parties wish to work with Merkel, largely because she has been so successful at overshadowing her previous coalition parties. It is hard to figure out what an acceptable compromise would be to a party that fears becoming irrelevant if it joins the government. The center-left coalition with the SPD would be good for those European countries who are undergoing the austerity programs pushed by Merkel, so non-German related issues might determine the outcome.
There is much discussion about a possible meeting between Iranian President Rouhani and US President Obama at the upcoming UN opening meeting. The pressures for and against such a meeting are quite intense, but all behind the scenes. If the meeting does occur and is more than perfunctory, it may signal the beginning of a new relationship between the US and Iran. Most observers agree that President Rouhani has made more than sufficient overtures to justify reciprocity from the US.
Bo Xilai, a former rising star in the Chinese Communist Party, has been sentenced to life imprisonment on corruption charges. Mr. Bo was once the darling of the “Maoist” wing of the Party, but he was purged from the Party so that China could follow a more capitalist road. In all likelihood, we will probably never hear about Mr. Bo again, but it seems clear that many in the Party believe that his perspective was something that should prevail in China. So it would be a big mistake to think that the matter is settled. Deng Xiaoping was exiled three times, but ended up leading China into its economic revival.
Angela Merkel appears set to secure a third term as German Chancellor with a rather stunning victory in which her party, the Christian Democrats, secured its largest share of votes ever. Merkel will soon be the longest serving female leader of a European state, overtaking Margaret Thatcher’s record in Britain. Significantly, Merkel is the first European leader to secure re-election since 2012, as voters have thrown most leaders out of office for poor economic performance. The critical question is whether this stunning victory will ease up the pressure to pursue austerity policies in the eurozone or intensify it.
At least 78 people were killed in Peshawar, Pakistan as two suicide bombers blew up an area near a Christian church as parishioners were leaving. Christians make up a small minority of the population in the primarily Muslim country, but attacks on them have increased in recent years. The violence is an indication of how fragile the Pakistani government is, as it seems helpless to protect its citizens.
Diplomats from France, Britain, Spain, Ireland, Australia and the EU’s political office converged on the village of Makhul in the West Bank to deliver tents to Bedouins whose homes had been destroyed by the government of Israel. The Israeli High Court had determined that the Bedouins lacked proper building permits for their buildings and therefore the government of Israel had the right to remove the edifices. The Israeli Army had earlier refused to allow the Red Cross to deliver tents to the same people. Demolition of property by an Occupying Power is prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which reads: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons … is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”
39 people were killed in an attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. The Somali militant group al-Shabab has taken credit for the attack, which signals a widening of the violence in East Africa. There are about 4,000 Kenyan troops in Somalia who are trying to bring order to a very violence-prone country, and al-Shahbab claims that it is merely responding to the Kenyan intervention. al-Shabab has been trying to establish an Islamic state in Somalia for many years.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons at The Hague announced on Friday that it has received a list of Chemical weapons sites from the Syiran government and that it was going over the list to check for accuracy. The Syrian government has therefore met the first requirement of the US-Russian agreement on Syrian chemical weapons. The next step is for the government to allow inspectors into the country to verify the list within 30 days.
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come thru the music,
Would you hold it near as it were your own?
It’s a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps they’re better left unsung.
I don’t know, don’t really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.
Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.
There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.
Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.
You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall you fall alone,
If you should stand then who’s to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.
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